Missing White Woman Syndrome : How Media Framing Affects Viewers’ Emotions
How Media Framing Affects Viewers’ Emotions

<jats:p> In this experiment, the study of missing white woman syndrome is extended to video coverage to determine whether visual framing and race have an effect on the emotions of viewers. Missing white woman syndrome relates to the idea that stories about attractive, young, white females who go missing are more prevalent in the news to the exclusion of similar stories about other demographics. This study examined the relationship between race and framing effects through a factorial design experiment and posttest questionnaire. Experimental conditions compared television news stories about women of different demographics who are portrayed differently in both visual and nonvisual frames. Results showed that visual framing did affect the emotions of viewers, but the race of the missing person did not. </jats:p>